


One Day More

by airsalonpasandpettysquabbles



Series: Fiends to Friends [4]
Category: Tales of Arcadia (Cartoons), Trollhunters - Daniel Kraus & Guillermo del Toro
Genre: An abundant use of em—dashes, Merlin being shooketh (or is that in the next part of the series?), Merlin watching over the deadboiTM
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-04
Updated: 2019-10-04
Packaged: 2020-11-23 19:01:53
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 342
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20894576
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/airsalonpasandpettysquabbles/pseuds/airsalonpasandpettysquabbles
Summary: Merlin watches over the Trollhunter





	One Day More

Over the course of the years, Merlin saw the onslaught of changes onto his charge. The latter turned back to his true form—much to Merlin's dismay, for his _true_ form was that of a hybrid—and became the James Lake his friends and family all knew.

He was so young. Of course, to an immortal wizard all beings were young, but this human, a creature so delicate and fragile in itself, was barely two decades old. He hadn't even completed basic schooling! Sometimes Merlin wondered if his amulet was infallible if it made the right choices. If _he_ made the right choices.

He regretted taking Jim's humanity so briskly and swiftly, hell, he regretted taking it from him at all. Of course, with his new skills and abilities, he was capable of destroying the impeding evil on Arcadia Oaks, but at the same time, it would slowly have destroyed him from the inside.

He laughed bitterly at the irony of it all. One's humanity qualified them to be a Trollhunter. And without that humanity, without that drive to help and save, a Trollhunter would end up-

"Dead."

Merlin cast a melancholic look over the catatonic body.

* * *

Indeed, it took three whole years before Jim returned to his human appearances. His height had gone first—Merlin noticing with a broken stare just how small he _really_ was. Then his skin turned back to the fawn tone it was before, with tinges of coral here and there; all traces of purple gone. The other changes happened faster, quicker, his hair receding to a more tamed style, but not quite the one from before. His fangs becoming the human molars they were before. His ears shaping into circular molds that contrasted wildly against the fluffed cone-shaped ones from before.

His eyes were closed, but Merlin hoped they were a piercing blue rather than a sickening yellow.

And all throughout the changes, there was no hint of a soul. No trace of a spirit.

But Merlin couldn't give up. For who's sake, he didn't know…


End file.
